Dorian woke groggy, bone tired and sore, his exertions the previous day having caught up with him. After the little skirmish with the ratkin, the hunters had driven back to the Lodge and then bid each other night, too tired to talk. The emotions from winning their first real battle in a long while and the appearance of the Steward having wrung them out.

He had gotten home and had enough energy to shrug out of his ratkin blood-covered clothes and stumble into his bathroom to scrub away the blood before collapsing into bed.

Dorian checked his beeping terminal and straightened in alarm then winced when he pulled a sore muscle—his body was no longer used to the rigours he'd put it through. The cause of his alarm was Kowloon City being on lockdown, with the city having raised its massive defensive walls and the Stewards out in full force. It seemed he wasn't going to work today.

Dorian suddenly realized how lucky he'd been the previous night, how lucky they'd all been. His assumptions the previous night had been wrong or slightly off, they'd faced a monster surge, or the dregs of one. Kowloon City had faced the brunt of it.

It was a momentous thing, a monster surge, it meant the numbers in the wildlands were either getting out of control or less likely the Stewards had really royally screwed up. Dorian's money was on the Stewards screwing up.

Monster surges were not easy to cause or possible to cause really, in the past when the system reigned supreme, they were called Rift breaks. When hunters failed to clear a rift of the monsters within, the monsters would pour out and decimate the surroundings. Many cities had been lost this way when hidden rifts popped up and went uncleared with the results being monsters overrunning whole cities. The killing of the figure the System had dubbed the 'Overseer' saw an end to rifts popping into existence. It didn't get rid of the monsters, hence the wildlands.

And sometimes very rarely, like following an instinct—monsters of different species would band together and surge towards the closest and largest human settlements. Reading further on the events of the previous night revealed this particular monster surge had been exclusively filled with ratkin. Which was alarmingly worrying in its implications. If one type of relatively weak monsters had the numbers to threaten a city, what would happen if a deadlier type reached those numbers? What if they already had and were simply waiting?

It would be a repeat of the System era.

Dorian knew for a fact that others had come to the same conclusion and there was even talk of a mass recruitment drive to bolster the Steward's numbers. Not one person spoke of arming humanity's former defenders. Everyone worried they were more likely to turn their weapons on humanity than help them. They were right to worry.

Dorian read further and came across an article detailing how the Stewards had stopped several ratkin from attacking the lodge. There was no mention of any hunters. He shut down his terminal in disgust and struggled to his feet, since he had no work today he decided to treat himself.

He was still deciding on what to make for himself when a knock came and the door opened and his friends spilled in, carrying shopping bags.

“Dan said you cooked the most edible poison he'd ever tasted so we're here to find out, ” Jax announced.

Smiling broadly, Dorian helped them carry the food into the kitchen and together they whipped up a medley of foods they each swore was the best thing they could make. They had all come to watch Dorian cook and yet they somehow ended up in a competition to see whose dish was the best. It was hectic, it was silly and it was downright fun.

They carried their many cooked meals to Dorian's new couch and proceeded to gag at any food that wasn't theirs, till Dan screwed up and gagged on scrambled eggs he'd made. The teasing was relentless and he was named the overall loser. Dorian got them cold beers out of his new mini fridge and they leaned back and watched shitty hunter movies on his new holo-projector.

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Their festive mood was ruined when the Stewards announced a ban on anyone going into the wildlands. The ban would make life harder for hunters that still lived up to the name and the less glamorous trappers who sold their trapped monsters to the highest bidder. Hunters turned trappers were tolerated, not liked. The Meat Locker had to get their monsters from somewhere.

Dorian watched as his friends admired the new amenities in his house, amenities he'd gotten for dirt cheap because they were, and yet somehow hunters couldn't even afford that. He remembered why he'd never gotten a job his friends couldn't get because it had felt like a betrayal in some way.

Jax must have seen the look on his face because he cleared his throat and pulled out a small pouch containing five empty cores. “This is the best we could do on short notice. For some reason, someone has been buying up all the depleted cores on the market, it's strange. But we do hope it's enough. ”

Dorian was jolted to his feet when he realised he hadn't told his friends of his new discovery, it was understandable given the previously hectic night but still. With nervous energy he rushed towards his bathroom to rifle through the clothes he'd left pooled there, finding the cores he let out a breath of relief.

The hunter nonchalantly walked back and dropped four full brightly glowing monster cores on his coffee table. All conversation stopped and three wide eyes looked up at him. Dorian couldn't contain himself anymore, he blurted out all his recent discoveries. “So yeah, I can near instantly fill all the cores, at least the four I had with me.”

It was Leo who reacted first by wordlessly dropping two more full monster cores on the table and bringing the number up to six. And just like that, they had enough for the process they hadn't really named yet.

With a sombre air, Jax pulled out his essence stone and picked out a monster core. Dorian watched with a held breath as his fellow hunter pulled in the echo and sent it towards the stone and watched his expression drop when the energy was rebuffed.

Dan and Leo did the same and were also rebuffed from the stricken look on their faces. Dorian was about to suggest a different core when he remembered and he bodily slapped himself across the face. He did it once again for good measure. He moved in a near run into his kitchen and back out with a knife, which he presented to his friends. “You need blood for this part of the process to work, your own blood,“ Dorian clarified when the looks from his friends got worried.

His friends now looking alarmed at his antics watched the held-out knife with a hint of trepidation. Dan the ever-hot head snatched the knife out of Dorian's hand and nicked his own finger then closed his eyes to try again. Dorian let out an explosive sigh when Dan's whole body shook and he opened his eyes with wonder in them. Leo was next with the same results and Jax finally willed himself to try.

“It works, holy shit it works,” Dan swore.

“So I'm guessing the next step is to absorb echo and see what happens?” Jax asked.

Dorian was about to say yes and urge them to take the final step when he remembered the mess he'd made of his room when he'd gone through the change. The smell still haunted his nose some days. He changed tact.

“Do any of you have some out-of-the-way abandoned place we could use? The whole process kinda gets messy.”

“There is an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town that is falling apart. Used to be a monster meat processing plant till they started the big one in Kowloon city.”

To hear Leo speak so many words was surprising, and should what they were trying to do work. It wouldn't be the only surprise of the night. “To the edge of town then.”

The hunters piled into Dan's van and drove for the warehouse but stopped along the way for Dorian to get from the mart what he said were 'essentials.' The van pulled up to the abandoned warehouse and parked.

The hunters piled out and entered through a gaping hole in the wall. The whole structure with its roof sagging in places and missing in others was falling apart and thus perfect for their needs. With the light on his terminal, Dorian did a full circuit of the place finding rusted implements and a solitary tap.

He turned the spigot and did a little cheer when water came pouring out, they were going to need it.

Dorian moved back to the centre of the warehouse to find his friends had cleared out a circular space of debris and were waiting for his go-ahead. It suddenly hit him how he was the only knowledgeable one about the whole thing having experienced it first.

Jax would have given a speech to get them all pumped and eager to take such a momentous step. Dorian was no Jax and simply nodded. His friends pulled out the monster cores and closed their eyes. And Dorian knew the process had started when they suddenly seized and the cores began to float.

It had begun.